Interannual to decadal variations of precipitation and daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures in southern Brazil

The interannual to decadal variability of precipitation and daily maximum and daily minimum temperature (TMAX and TMIN) in southern Brazil for the 1913–2006 period is investigated using indices for these variables. Relations of these indices and the sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the eastern equatorial Pacific (Niño 3.4 index) and southwestern subtropical Atlantic (SSA index) are also investigated. Analyses are based on the Morlet wavelet transform. The interannual precipitation variability during the 1913–2006 period is mostly due to the high variances that occurred in specific sub-periods. The TMAX and TMIN indices also show significant interannual variability. The coherency and phase difference analyses of the precipitation index and the SST indices show higher coherency with the Niño 3.4 than with the SSA index. On the other hand, examining the coherencies and phase difference between the temperature indices and the SST indices, weaker coherencies with the Niño 3.4 index than with the SSA index are noted. These differences are discussed in the context of previous results. The new results here, with possible application for climate monitoring tasks, refer to the spectral differences between TMIN and TMAX.